She heard the word ‘Australian’ in Mai’s reply.
‘They killed him. They also killed his wife and the Australian man, Ralph,’ Pimjai said.
Stevie moistened her dry lips with her tongue. ‘Who killed them?’
‘Mamasan and The Crow.’ No hesitation. Mai did not seem to be frightened of recrimination.
Fowler hissed out a breath.
‘Why did they kill them?’ Stevie inched to the edge of her chair.
‘Pavel brought the girls over for the Mamasan,’ Pimjai said, ‘but he also brought others of his own, using the Mamasan’s network of contacts, even the Mamasan’s money—he lied to her about what he paid for them. He kept them at his house while he waited to sell them on. Mai was one of the ones he organised to keep for himself. Then the Mamasan found out. His excuse was that he didn’t think she’d mind because she had never been interested in girls who’d given birth...’ The pale skin of Pimjai’s neck flushed. ‘She says the clients don’t like them as much...’
These girls were investment commodities, Stevie reflected, items to be bought, sold, stolen and devalued.
‘Mamasan warned him to stop and set his house on fire to make him listen. He gave Mai back to the Mamasan, thinking that would be enough to please her. But he and the Australian, Ralph Hardegan, continued to bring the girls in. They were making so much money it was like a drug to them, they couldn’t stop. When the Mamasan found out, she killed Pavel, his wife and the man Ralph as an example to anyone else who tried to cross her.’
Just as they had suspected, Pavel and Hardegan had paid the price for undercutting the Mamasan. You take my girls and I take you: skin for skin.
‘We haven’t been able to locate Jon Pavel’s body yet,’ Stevie said.
Pimjai listened to Mai. ‘Mai saw them kill him,’ she said with a shudder. ‘They tortured him, burned off his skin, and then took his body out to sea in a boat, weighted it down and dumped it over the side.’
No wonder they hadn’t found the body. Stevie decided not to press for details of the torture, not yet, even though they would have to be documented later. Looking from one pale face to the other, she wondered how much more either girl could take.
Col beckoned her over and handed her a computer image of an aged Jennifer Granger, a picture Stevie had not yet seen. Pulling a photo of the young Granger from her jeans pocket she compared the peachy round face, wide innocent eyes and gap-toothed smile to the woman in the age-enhanced picture. Could the cherub really have turned into this dugong-faced creature? Stevie’s inability to spot a single shared feature made her sceptical of the picture’s value. She knew the age-enhancing process involved a mixture of science, art, facial growth data and heredity, and had often been invaluable in the hunt for long-term missing persons. But she had trouble coming to terms with the idea that an artist or scientist could predict the influence of lifestyle and experience on a face, when he had no idea what those influences might be. In this instance, he certainly seemed to have expected the worst.
She made eye contact with Col. ‘Surely this doesn’t take plastic surgery into account? You said she’d had various makeovers.’
He shrugged—God only knows—and urged her back to Mai with a firm nod of his head.
‘Do you know who this woman is, Mai?’ she asked, forsaking her chair to perch on the edge of the bed.
Mai’s head dipped as she examined the picture of the older Granger, a veil of hair falling over her face, hiding it. Pimjai took a peep at the picture too and said something to Mai who returned a single word answer. Pimjai responded with an uneasy laugh.
‘Well, Pimjai?’ Stevie asked.
‘She said the woman is very ugly.’
Stevie blew out a breath of impatience. ‘Yes, but does she recognise her?’
‘Wait, give her longer.’
Shit, how long does she need? Stevie fidgeted with her shirtsleeves while she waited, trying to roll them into neat folds of military precision, ending up making uncomfortable knots at her elbows instead. Her gaze dropped once more to the picture Mai held in her hand.
And then her breath caught.
She bent over the picture and examined it again, her cheek almost touching Mai’s. She knew that face, she was certain, there was something about the mouth. Must be a known Madam, she reasoned, familiar from one of the reams of mugshots imprinted on her mind. She would send this composite to her colleagues in Sex Crimes and see if it rang any bells.
Mai took a bolstering breath. ‘Mamasan.’ The single word needed no translation. Col pointed a told-you-so finger at Stevie before indicating for her to continue with the questions. ‘But now she looks different,’ Pimjai added after listening again to Mai.
‘Different, how?’ Stevie asked.
‘Mai, do you know an old woman called Mrs Hardegan?’ Fowler asked simultaneously. Stevie could have murdered him.
‘No!’ Mai gasped in English, having obviously recognised the name. Her dark eyes flitted in panic away from Stevie’s. She pulled the sheet over her head and lay as inert as a body under a shroud.
‘She’s an old woman who lives next door to the Pavels.’ May as well finish what Fowler had started, Stevie decided. ‘Mai, you must know who she is.’
Mai shook her head vigorously under the sheet, making a low, keening sound. Stevie glanced toward Fowler, who looked on with exasperation.
Pimjai turned on Stevie. ‘This must end now—you, your questions, you are upsetting her.’ Before Stevie could react, Pimjai gave the nurses’ call button three sharp jabs—emergency—then let rip with a rapid stream of Thai.
‘Hey, wait on a minute...’ Stevie began.
‘No more talk,’ Pimjai said, ‘If she has to speak to you again it must be with a lawyer.’
Stevie plucked at the sleeve of Pimjai’s Audrey Hepburn suit and shook her head in desperation. ‘Pimjai, Mai’s not in trouble, she’s a witness only—you’re hardly being professional about this...’
A nurse dashed into the room and pulled up short when she realised it wasn’t an emergency. Despite Fowler jabbing his thumb accusingly at Pimjai, they were told they had to leave.
‘Shit,’ Fowler said as they stepped into the passageway, his lower lip jutting with disappointment. ‘What an obstructive little cow, she doesn’t miss much does she? Talk about the sisterhood. We’re going to have to lodge a complaint against that one.’
Stevie bit her tongue; the situation was hard enough without Fowler making it worse. Some of her hair had come loose; it must’ve been from all that frantic head shaking at Pimjai. She smoothed it back and tightened her ponytail. What she really wanted to do was get out of here, return to her mother’s house and sleep for a week.
‘Pimjai was only doing her job, Fowler,’ she said. She glanced back into the room and saw Pimjai reach for the sobbing girl and felt the last of her energy drain away. After everything that girl had been through and despite her best intentions, all she’d succeeded in doing was make Mai cry.
Fowler folded his arms and glared at her. ‘You should have been tougher, Hooper, cut to the chase sooner, shown her the dress and asked her about the bus crash.’
‘Look what happened when you cut to the chase,’ Stevie said.
Fowler appeared not to hear her. ‘What a waste of bloody time that was.’
‘Bull it was,’ Col said to Fowler with uncharacteristic sharpness, the strain was getting to him too. ‘We now have proof of everything we suspected and more. The hunt for Mamasan and The Crow can begin for real now we have that positive ID.’
‘If you believe in that kind of composite garbage—the girl said Mamasan looked different now.’